Playing Matchmaker
by omens
Summary: Hey-I may be dead, but I still want what’s best for my girl. AU. Fred centric antics in five parts. Fred/Hermione, hints of Harry/Hermione
1. Part 1 Happenstance

**Name:** Chris

**Title:** Playing Matchmaker

**Fandom:** Harry Potter

**Genre:** General

**Rating:** T

**Summary:** Hey-I may be dead, but I still want what's best for my girl. AU. Fred centric antics in five parts. Fred/Hermione, hints of Harry/Hermione

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Part 1; Happenstance

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There are moments in life when you can point to a single event and say, without doubt or reservation, "That's the moment my life changed forever."

For me, that moment would have to be when I died.

There's really nothing quite as…permanent as death. Little secret? Kinda dull too.

See I always thought that when you died that was it. Here's your ticket, there's the train, one way and no stops.

Nope.

One thing I never knew is that we get a choice about whether or not we go on. You'd think that seven years around ghosts at Hogwarts would teach me a thing or two. We don't get to go back obviously. Believe you me-if I had the option to be alive again, I'd be on it so fast it would be like nothing had ever happened.

I woke up…or at least I think I woke up. I'm not entirely sure what to call it. One second I was in Hogwarts while the battle raged around me, and then I blinked. Everything was gone; the castle was deserted and there was a ghostly gray tinge to the stone walls and the paintings. And no one, not a soul was around. Save for myself of course.

Getting to the Great Hall wasn't a conscious decision. Heck, I'm not sure I can even be considered 'conscious' at this point. Eh. Semantics. There just seemed to be something pulling me there.

There were other people in the Hall. Some I knew, some I didn't. Colin Creevy was there, sitting at what would be Gryffindor table in the real castle. And when the witch that sat at the front of the room under the Sorting Hat stood and walked towards a door behind her to the right, he got up and took her seat. Only scant seconds past before he stood and walked through the same door without a word or look back to anyone around him.

Was this a joke? I know jokes and this didn't seem like any I'd ever conceived of. Getting sorted for the afterlife just seemed a little…easy. Who-or what-exactly did the sorting anyway? And where did the doors go? One side Heaven, the other Hell?

Then it was my turn. No one had to tell me; there wasn't a professor MacGonagall standing at the front of the room with a roll of parchment checking off names one by one. The few people that were there before me were gone, the only person-soul? spirit?-there besides me came in after I did.

Guess my turn was unavoidable. Unlike last time, I really wasn't looking forward to it.

Whoa. Déjà vu. Being sorted again is weird. Just plain weird.

What did I expect? Hard to say. The real Sorting Hat kind of probes around in your mind; filtering out what you like, your interests, asks you questions. This one didn't do any of that. Instead it shows me pictures. Past, present, future perhaps. But they were real-I could feel it in my bones. You know, if they're still actually real bones and all.

I saw my mum. Crying. Sobbing in that way only a person who had just lost something she held dear could. My dad, silent tears making their way down his face. Whatever resides where my heart was when it was still beating clenches. God. That kind of pain…it's pretty painful to watch it. Especially when you're the cause of it.

George was next and I knew that was going to be tough to see. He is my twin after all, pretty much my other half. He hurts, I hurt. And vice versa.

There was absolutely no color in his face. He looked lost. Simply…lost. Like he didn't know what to do. I'm pretty sure that's the way I would've felt had the situation ended up the other way. The feeling when I saw him with all that blood on his face, lying so still, resonates pretty deep-even if it was just an ear. I hate that I've done this to him.

But it wasn't like it was my fault.

The rest of the crowd wasn't exactly pleasant to see; Harry, Ginny, my brothers, Lee. It didn't exactly fill me with warm fuzzies that this was going to be my last image of them, yet there wasn't anything I could do about it.

Nice to know I'd be missed though.

Then I saw Hermione.

Oh god, Hermione. I've never seen someone look so utterly devastated in my life-or rather, existence now I guess. There's not a word o describe how destroyed she looked sitting there against the wall of the Great Hall, her hands folded limply in her lap, face expressionless and white as a sheet. And her eyes…that light that was always there in her big brown eyes was gone, like someone had flipped a switch and turned it off. A single tear slipped its way down her ashen cheek. When her hand made no move to wipe I away I glanced down at it. (How, I'll never know.)

That was when her ring caught my attention. Nothing special really. Just a simple silver band with a tiny little heart engraved in the middle. It was all I could afford at the time and I promised, promised, I'd get her a real one some day.

I wasn't going to get a someday. But seeing Hermione that way; so lost, with the ring I gave her two years ago, it made me determined that she was going to get her someday. Even if I wouldn't get o be the guy who gave it to her.

With my goal decided, the hat floated away from me and I walked purposefully towards the door that no one before me had gone through. I knew instinctively that it would take me where I needed to go.


	2. Part 2 A Misson

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Part 2; A Mission

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I remember once, when I was about 5 or so, hiding one of Bill's old brooms out in the gardening shed when he refused to let me ride it by myself. I thought it was merely old-turned out to be is favorite and after the gnomes broke into seven pieces he swore he'd kill me. Naturally, I vowed that if he did I would haunt him for the rest of his days.

That may have been fun; haunting my older brother. It couldn't have been all that different from the way that George and I played tricks on him anyway. For the next few days I pictured all the various ways that I'd go about tormenting him after I was a ghost and he wouldn't be able to see me. Or catch me for that matter. It seemed like such fun at the time-the idea of complete anonymity whilst playing my tricks, that I made a very (in my own unbiased opinion) valiant effort to try and anger him as much as possible in the hopes that I could turn it into a reality.

Mum wasn't too fond of the idea however, and I was grounded for a week and George suggested we pull the pranks anyway. Why wait and have all the fun after I was dead?

Well, haunting someone isn't as much fun as I thought it would be. Then again, I'm not following Hermione around with the intention of actualizing any and all sinister thoughts that comes into my head.

What am I doing exactly? As much as it pains me to admit it; I am trying in vain to find my girlfriend a boyfriend.

Yeah. It sounds weird to me too.

But that is my plight.

Scratch that. It's my mission, and I choose to accept it, to find the love of my life a new love of **her **life. Save for myself obviously.

Suffice it to say, I'm not exactly thrilled to be doing this. It royally sucks that I have to scour the wizarding world to try and find someone that could possibly be good enough for Hermione. I don't think he exists. Hell, I still don't even believe that I was good enough for her. But she chose me and I'd have been a right fool to turn her down.

But it turns out that all those girly magazines my sister used to read are right; finding a good man is hard. Way harder than I would have thought. Not that I've ever actually thought about. I was too busy looking at the girls and not thinking how hard it was for them.

Man. I even **sound** like a girl now.

Back on point.

It's been three months since I died…and that has got to be the most bizarre thought I have ever had. I can feel the dazed, somewhat confused look on my own face. I can only imagine how it would sound to someone else. And let me tell you-it's been strange all right.

Briefly, I popped in at my funeral. Surreal. There was only so much I could take of all that black and sobbing before I left, somehow appearing within a second at the shop. I felt much better there and it gave me the time I needed to formulate my plan-the plan to find Hermione a guy who could give her all the things I was no longer able to.

It was going to take time. I may have even flattered myself thinking that it would take a lot of time. First, Hermione had to get over me.

That's only about half as conceited as it sounds. I mean, I know that I am-or was, rather-an amazing catch, but that's not the focal point here. I was her first love. Her only love to be specific. The only guy she ever dated unless you can't Krum which I never did. Ever. One Ball does not a grand romance make. So that just leaves me.

And I died. Bound to make her a little gun shy. So to speak.

Ever since the battle Hermione has reverted back to the little girl she was when she first came to Hogwarts; focused, driven, and lacking any sort of emotional attachments. Harry and Ron don't really count. They've been in her life for years. They're family. I'm talking about new ones.

She, and Harry and Ron, opted not to go back to school, instead finishing their classes by owl from Grimmauld Place. They study all day, then hang out by the fire all night, the monotony broken only by a visit to the Burrow or a fellow classmate dropping by. Neville's a frequent visitor, as is Seamus. Both of them decided to forgo a return trip to the castle. Never thought I'd live to see McGonagall go lax enough to let half of Gryffindor leave school. Oh right. I didn't.

One night, just as the weather was starting to cool down, they both came over for a night to hang out sans parents and/or grandparents, it hit me. Gryffindors. I know these guys-and they're good guys. Trustworthy, brave, fun-loving guys, all accustomed to Hermione's particular brand of bossy. This was where I was going to find the perfect guy for Hermione. What was I thinking trying to find her a guy out of strangers? I'm not exactly proud to admit that I began scanning the crowds for anyone that looked right. It's a pretty safe assumption that I know her type, right?

But no one looked **right**. Too short, too stocky, too something-all of them.

That was about a week and a half ago and since then I've realized that I can't go out and find some average bloke of the street. I have to wait and see what happens in her life and go from there.

But this idea…the Gryffindor boys are like four loud, very hungry answers to my prayers.

They sat around the table while Kreacher puttered around them in his usual slow-poke manner. Man. And I thought Ron could put it away. He's got nothing on these two.

Let's see…Neville. Now there's a good guy. Loyal. Sturdy. Devoted to the people he cares about. Perhaps a touch too innocent though. Not in the 'experience' department mind you but in another way that I can't put my finger on. I know he fought with them at the Department of Mysteries so I'm fairly certain he could protect if the need arose….and, you know, she wasn't protecting him. Then there's that little detail of him asking her to the Yule Ball. Of course that could be attributed to the fact that girls other than Hermione and Ginny terrified Neville back then. Knowing what I do about Neville; how well he'd treat Hermione-I think I could be okay with the idea of the two of them.

But then…there's no way he'd ever be able to keep up with her. She'd run him into the ground with her constant Hermioneness within a week.

Guess that means Neville's out.

There was always Seamus. Hmm. On the one hand, he is Half-Muggle. That's one thing going for him. On the other-I gotta admit, he's not as impressive as Neville in the hero category. Hermione needs that; someone equal to her on the magic level. Or close at least. There are very few people out there capable of matching wits with her. And Seamus…not the brightest of blokes. Not that I'm trying to be unkind-merely honest. Also, he's always struck me as something of a Mama's Boy. I think that's the expression. Not really sure seeing as it's a Muggle term. It was Hermione however who taught it to me so I'd say it's a pretty safe bet.

And I'm 0 for 2.

I wonder if Dean's planning to drop by any time soon. That would be a good match. He can understand the hunt for the Horcruxes since he was on the run from the Ministry most of last year. He was raised as a Muggle and always seemed to get on pretty fair in school. And I'm sure Ginny would understand. It's not like they dated all that long and Hermione did lose her boyfriend in the most tragic of ways. Yes sir, I think I've found my man.

Oh. Wait. I remember overhearing something Ron said the other night about Dean and Luna Lovegood. Drats. Odd pairing, the two of them, but I can't go messing up with existing couples.

That just leaves Harry and Ron. And there is no way I'm going to set my girlfriend up with my brother. That is just plain wrong. And kind of creepy.

Plus I'm pretty sure she'd end up killing him eventually and Hermione's much too smart to end up in Azkaban instead of out there doing something worthwhile.

So I guess it all comes down to Harry.

Harry. Interesting. He and Ginny couldn't make it work, and she may be an issue. She is my sister after all. I don't want to upset her…. Eh. She can always find someone else.

Harry's used to Hermione's particular brand of controlling. He cares about her. He's smart-I've heard. And he can definitely protect her if she ever needed it. Upside; without You Know Who around I'm sure he's a lot less likely to end up on the top of somebody's hit list. And hey, he may be bored without an arch nemesis to thwart on a regular basis.

By George (not that one) I think I've found my man.

You know what I mean.

…0…

Hermione has got to be, without a doubt, the most stubborn witch to ever walk the face of the planet. Every effort on my part to bring some semblance of happiness to her life has been profusely ignored.

The time I pulled on the upstairs rug while she and Harry were entering and exiting the loo respectively, designed to make her crash into him so he could catch her like some sort of romance story perfect first kiss moment? Thwarted. Hermione managed to catch herself on the wall just in the nick of time. Typical.

Harry's door 'accidentally' being left open while he was changing when he and Hermione were the only ones home? She didn't even see. An owl with perfect timing flew to her window with a note from her Mum.

Leaving some of Hermione's under things in with Harry's clean laundry-fodder for some more than friendly thoughts to arise-on several occasions? Kreacher found them and absconded with them back to their rightful place before Harry could even notice. Little bugger.

And that one was not a bit pleasant for me to pull off.

Add that to the fact that Hermione seems to be avoiding both he and Ron more and more lately…it's curious. Almost as if she knows what I'm up to and is attempting to best me at my own game. I would not put it past her.

"You're trying to drive me mad, aren't you?" I ask one night while she pores over NEWT level Potions. I know she can't hear me, but it makes me feel a bit better to ask. If it were possible for her to hear me any of the numerous times I comment randomly throughout the day, there are lots of other things I'd tell her. Things like "I'd never have left you if I'd had the choice, but the world conspired against the two of us it seems." Heck, even her being able to hear me tell her "Ron stole those Transfiguration notes you lost last week." would make my day.

And still…she appears to be resisting me. All I have to say about that is this: she couldn't resist me in life, why should death be any different?

Hermione is going to be happy. And nothing is going to get in the way of that. Not even Hermione herself.

…0…


	3. Part 3 Memeories Work their Magic

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Part 3; Memories Work their Magic

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It really shouldn't be a surprise that Hermione managed to get not only herself but Harry as well completely through the Seventh Year curriculum in only six months. Ron was close, but hey, he's Ron. He still had another month's worth of lessons at least ahead of him despite all of Hermione's nagging.

So the two of them ended up with some free time while Ron tried his hardest to catch up with them. They decided to take their N.E.W.T.S. together so, when Ron wasn't asking for help, they had oodles of empty hours for me to work my magic.

Man, would this be easier with actual magic. Plotting the Muggle way is hard.

And it doesn't help any that the one I'm plotting against is just about the cleverest girl alive. I really have my work cut out for me.

But I am Fred Weasley. I am nothing if not determined. Not to mention brilliant, devious, and all out mastermind extraordinaire.

If this weren't for Hermione's own good, I'd almost feel sorry for her

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The first time it occurred to me that maybe my plan was a little…premature, was about a week after I decided that Harry was perfect for Hermione. I wandered into her room around midnight because I thought I heard crying and discovered I was right. She was lying on her bed, hugging her teddy bear, and tears were falling rapidly down her pale cheeks.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I was heading towards her, the automatic response of a man who wants to comfort the woman that he loved. Only when she didn't respond to my saying her name did it dawn on me that she couldn't hear me, or see me. I was there, but not to her. To her, I was gone. Forever.

Then a sliver of light broke through, casting itself across Hermione's stomach as her bedroom door opened. I saw her posture stiffen, and her breathing even out as she tried to calm down and conceal the fact that she was crying.

"Hermione?" Harry asked softly. "Where have you been?"

She didn't reply, instead, she sat up, her back to Harry, and wiped hastily at her face. "I'm fine, Harry. Go back to bed."

With a small smile that Hermione couldn't see, he retorted, "I didn't ask how you were, I asked where you've been. But I guess I have my answer to that first part."

Fresh tears spilled down her face as she said "I just miss him so much," her voice thick and breaking with each word.

Harry was beside her for a second, arms tightly around her shoulders and her face pressed into his neck. "Shh, its okay, Hermione," he whispered.

"I wanted to go with you guys today, Harry, I really did." Hermione's words came out in a tumble, barely distinguishable with the tears lacing them. "But when I got up this morning and I opened my closet…I saw the present I got him back in March and I just…I couldn't do it."

"Leave it to you to buy a birthday present when we were on the run," he chuckled.

Hermione laughed, though it came out more as a hiccup with the tears mixed in. "It was perfect for him." She took a deep breath and pulled away from Harry, pushing her hair back from her face. "Was Mrs. Weasley upset that I wasn't there?"

"I think she got it," Harry said. "George couldn't go with us either. He waited until later and went by himself. He refused to let his Mum make him a cake or anything."

That's when it hit me. My birthday. That's what they were talking about, why Hermione was crying. She was thinking about me more than usual because that day was supposed to be my birthday.

Wow. I can't believe I didn't remember.

Harry left, and Hermione settled back down onto her bed, hugging the teddy bear she always used to bring with her to the Burrow, the same one I used to tease her about because I thought she was cute when she got all red and flustered. It was the only thing I'd found that actually unnerved her-at least until we started dating and I found a few more, ahem, interesting things.

That was the moment I knew for sure that Hermione wasn't ready for another guy. But it was also when I saw for myself just how much Harry cared about her.

Something in my chest began to hurt. I can't explain it, but it just plain hurt. It was the first actual feeling, emotion, that I'd had since the battle. I had simply assumed that, being that I was dead and all, I wasn't able to have emotions anymore. And yet the idea that someone could care for Hermione as much as I did really, really hurt.

Perhaps it sounds a little backwards that the idea of someone caring about Hermione upset me when I was out trying to find her another guy. The only thing that explains it is that I wasn't thinking it through all the way.

And I realized that if I found another guy for Hermione, someone to care for her as much as I had, that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch that she'd care for him just as much. Maybe even as much as she had me. Maybe…she would even love him.

That really hurt.

…0…

Six months after I died, Hermione took off the ring I gave her when she was fifteen. Yes, fifteen. It sounds young in theory, but I loved her, and I wasn't about to let someone that brilliant and brave get away from me if there was anyway I could help it.

Her taking it off…I felt another deep chest in my heart. If it had still been beating I'm pretty sure it would have ripped its way right out of my chest.

Hermione has this box where she keeps all her little keepsakes and stuff. It's a music box that her Grandmother gave her when she was seven and has ballet dancers drawn all over it and one that pops up and twirls when the lid's lifted. The first time I saw it was the first time it hit me that bossy little know it all Hermione Granger had a girly side. It was adorable.

There are a few things from me in that box. A candy wrapper from a bag of Honeyduke's chocolates we shared the first time we went into Hogsmeade just the two of us. The flower I floated to her during a Quidditch practice she watched one day, making her blush scarlet all the way to her hair. A note I passed her at dinner. Letters I sent after I left school. And now the ring I gave her was going in there as well.

Being completely honest, I never really expected to fall in love. I wasn't exactly against it. I was all for girls and fun. But love…that wasn't really my main goal in life.

Then Hermione happened to me and all I wanted was to be with her. But I didn't get forever. All I got was two years where we were separated almost the entire time. But with Hermione, it was enough just to know that she was thinking about me.

She deserved better. And I want her to have it no matter how much it hurt me.

"Hey, Hermione, you ready to go?"

Harry stood in the doorway of Hermione's bedroom wearing his coat, gloves in hand, and looked at the box she held in her hands. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Just putting some things away." Grabbing her hat and coat off the bed, she walked towards him. "Is Ron coming with us?"

Grinning, Harry held her coat out for her to put it on. "Nah. He's doing Potions."

"Oooh," she laughed. "I hope Kreacher doesn't start swearing when he sees the kitchen."

"Maybe we need to set up a room for him," Harry mused as I followed them down the hall. "If for no other reason than keeping him from setting the table on fire again."

They laughed, heading down the stairs and out the front door. After the door shut it hit me-really hit me.

Hermione didn't need to play matchmaker for her and Harry.

They were falling for each other all on their own.

…0…

_**A/N: I realize that Jo has said Fred and George were born on April Fool's Day, but since it wasn't actually in the books, I'm disregarding it for now.**_


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